The
SPRUCE MOOSE A publication of the Adirondack Ecological Center
Winter/Spring 2006
Timeless Symbols of The Adirondacks By Dr. William F. Porter
When Glen Gray, the superintendent of Saratoga National Historical Park, commissioned a contest for a new symbol for the park he didn’t get what he expected. Saratoga commemorates the pivotal battle of the Revolutionary War and among about 50 entries were just two depicting the Revolution. The remainder showed a white-tailed deer. The abundance of deer in the park since the 1980s is impressive, but those entries failed to capture the contemporary importance and historical roots of the battlefield. When the question about the Spruce Moose symbol we use at AEC was voiced, it caused me to consider whether we measured up to those criteria. Are we capturing an important historical value and also a sense of who we are today? Ask people: What one image epitomizes the Adirondacks? The answer is almost always in concert with the wilderness of the region: a loon, or a deer or sometimes a maple leaf. What’s interesting is that had the question been posed a hundred years ago, the answer would have been unanimous: the spruce tree. Spruce was king because it drove an economy that employed 30,000 people in the Adirondacks in 1905, and it built the railroads in the North Country and a large milling works in Glens Falls. It could be argued that its depletion gave rise to forestry colleges, including our own ESF. But perhaps no species represents wilderness better than the moose because in its extermination from the Adirondacks can be found the origins of wildlife management. The ideals of wildlife conservation and forest management articulated by people like Roosevelt, Pinchot and Hough were drawn directly from
their experience in the Adirondacks. So, our spruce moose symbol draws a clear line back to a history that shaped the values at the core of the college. Do spruce and moose also serve as a contemporary descriptor of our mission? Yes, and that message is equally as powerful. Those who remember their dendrology know that spruce grows into forests from below, often spending 80 to 100 years beneath the shade of other trees, finally emerging into the canopy where it dominates for 200 to 300 years. Spruce that was “gone” from the Adirondacks by the 1920s is now returning to the forest canopy and the moose is repopulating the region after 120 years of absence. Today, we direct our research and our educational programs toward conservation biology and management of natural resources through science. We draw upon the lessons of the Adirondack Park as among the world’s most important experiments in sustainable development. The spruce and the moose exemplify the resilience of natural ecosystems when carefully managed, one of the most important lessons in all natural science. Nothing is a more appropriate symbol of our mission. By the way, the symbol you see was designed by Professor Andrew Saunders, an artist of unusually clear insight to the natural world and extraordinary ability to render its essence.
“The spruce and the moose exemplify the resilience of natural ecosystems...” Dr. William F. Porter, Director of the Adirondack Ecological Center
Loon Research Continues on Huntington Forest By Charlotte Demers
Since 1985, the reproductive success of the common loon has been studied on HWF lakes. What has 20 years of paddling the shores of our five water bodies revealed? That for loons, getting eggs to hatch is not an easy task. Sixty percent of the nesting attempts on HWF lakes fail to produce a chick. The largest cause of failure (50 percent) is nest depredation, either mammalian (raccoon, otter, and mink) or avian (possibly gulls or corvids). Another large contributor to nest failure is water level fluctuation (30 percent). Loons are excellent swimmers and strong flyers but are ungainly on the land. As a result, they nest very close to the water’s edge. This makes their nests susceptible to flooding during periods of rain and to abandonment by the adult pair during drought when the water recedes from the nest. Once an egg hatches, the most difficult time is over; chicks have an 88 percent chance of surviving to fledging size. HWF works in cooperation with the Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program (ACLP), which examines the effects of contaminants and human interactions on the loon population in the Adirondack Park. ACLP evolved from a previous research effort that spanned from 1998 to 2000, the Northeast Loon Study Workgroup. Three of HWF lakes — Arbutus, Deer and Wolf—are monitored on a weekly basis for loon activity. On-going studies on these lakes are examining the correlation between water quality and fish contaminant data from other research projects throughout the Adirondack Park. The loons on these lakes have been banded with colored leg bands so that individual birds can be identified.
Photo by Nina Schoch
In addition, a blood sample and a feather sample are taken from each of the birds upon capture and analyzed for total mercury content. This information is important in determining the risk to each bird from mercury contamination as well as shaping information on the source of this contamination. This past summer, the female loon on Wolf Lake was banded and had a satellite transmitter implanted on her back. She stayed on Wolf Lake with her mate and chick until Sept. 24, when she flew six miles south and rafted with other adult loons on Goodnow Flow. Around Oct. 24, she took flight again, this time landing off the coast of Rhode Island where she will presumably spend the winter. You can view her migration and current location on the USGS website (www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/ migratory_birds/loons/migrations.html).
Television Crews, Local and International,Visit Huntington Forest The Japanese television network NHK filmed beaver colonies on Huntington Forest during May and June 2005. The three-person crew worked to produce an hour–long program for the series, “The World,” to be aired later this year. Not only were the beaver’s activities recorded on film, but a bull moose was observed and filmed as well. After the Japanese team completed its work, another international team arrived to study our beaver population. A three-person crew from German television syndicate ARD came to Huntington in late October to learn about and film beavers. They are developing a half-hour program about the Hudson River and its sources to be aired in November. They found a willing participant in Dr. Dietland MullerSchwarze, a significant contributor to the body of knowledge regarding Castor canadensis (and conveniently, a native of Germany.) After a tour to many beaver sites, several interviews and two days of livetrapping the team departed HWF with plenty of exciting footage.
Ken Tsukakoshi of NHK television monitors a flexible video lens that is inserted through a plastic pipe into the beaver den.
Closer to home, the local television station from Plattsburgh arrived in July to film a segment for the 6 o’clock news highlighting Heather Root’s research on lichen communities in sugar maple trees, a littleknown subject in the Northeast. Lichens provide important forest ecosystem functions. Heather is a graduate student under the direction of Dr. Greg McGee at ESF.
Adirondack Forest Ecology and Management Course Rekindled By Chris Nowak
The “Adirondack Forest Ecology and Management” field course was rekindled this past summer. First taught by Dick Sage, Dr. William Porter and others in the late 1990s, the course has lay dormant for three years. This past year, Bill Porter recruited Chris Nowak of ESF’s Faculty of Forest and Natural Resources Management to co-offer the course. In mid-August, 16 students spent one week on the Huntington Forest learning about ecology, wildlife, silviculture and forestry via issues related to the sustainable management of Adirondack forests. The course was made possible because of the involvement of 12 guest lecturers and field trip leaders, including nearly all staff members from the AEC and forest properties at Huntington. The central thesis for the course was “Adirondack forests cannot be sustainably managed by humans.” Students treated this thesis as a hypothesis to be tested with information gathered during the week (all, by the way, rejected the hypothesis via detailed, written essays). Issues explored during the week included forest resiliency, deer impact, species and forest health, soil health, clear cutting, herbicides, industrial forestry, biodiversity, acidic deposition, and ecosystem integrity. It was an issuesoriented course that played out primarily on the Huntington Forest.
First Richard W. Sage Jr. Apprenticeship Completed
Matt Smith works in the field.
Matt Smith, a junior at the University of Vermont, was the first recipient of the Richard W. Sage Jr. Apprenticeship at Huntington Forest this summer. The Sage Apprenticeship provides support for students to spend a summer or semester at Huntington Forest working with the staff. Matt worked on a variety of research projects, including white-tailed deer trapping, salamander surveys, small mammal trapping, large mammal trapping (bears in the High Peaks), duck nest box surveys, and loon nesting success on Huntington Forest lakes.
Here is Matt’s assessment of the program: “I am currently in my senior year of undergraduate study at the University of Vermont, and this apprenticeship has provided me with many skills that will come in handy in the future as a graduate student in the wildlife biology field. In addition, the atmosphere and people at the Adirondack Ecological Center made for an excellent, enjoyable summer. Beyond the professional side of the position, I have also developed a great network of friends.”
Field studies take students into the forest.
One daylong field trip was taken to the Ward Lumber Company in Jay, N.Y. Students were exposed to the growing, harvesting, and mill processing of white pine via this small, family business. Class ran from 7:30 a.m. till 9 p.m. for six straight days. It was a demanding, full, rich and exhaustive (and exhausting) learning experience, and it was great. The course is planned again for August 2006. Guest lecturers, in order of appearance (in addition to Chris Nowak and Bill Porter) were: Charlotte Demers, Ross Whaley, Ray Masters, Russ Briggs, Roger Dziengeleski, Bruce Breitmeyer, Mike Gooden, René Germain, Jeff Ward, Jim Norman, Blair Page, and Stacy McNulty.
New Staff Member Steve Signell, who joined the AEC staff as a research support specialist in May, is working with N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation planners as part of the UMPGIS initiative. The goal of the UMP-GIS initiative is to improve the inventory portion Steve Signell joins the of Adirondack Park Unit Management Plans AEC team. (UMPs) by providing GIS tools, training and analysis services to DEC Park Managers. Steve also provides spatial analysis and technical support to graduate students at the AEC. Steve was born and raised in East Lansing, Mich., and has also lived in Maine and Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1993 and completed a master’s degree in forest science at Penn State University in May 2005. For his master’s thesis, he studied the influence of frequent fire on plant community composition and tree regeneration in Pennsylvania oak forests. Steve’s major academic interests are forest ecology, landscape ecology, spatial statistics and computer programming. He lives in Long Lake with his wife, Jen, 3-year-old son, Alex, and a bunch of pesky mice. When he’s not working on his new (old) house, he plays the fiddle, drinks copious amounts of coffee, and enjoys the heck out of the Adirondacks.
Earthquake Monitoring from the AEC
Seismograph at AEC Records Quakes in Adirondacks and Beyond By Won-Young Kim
Senior Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y. The Adirondack Mountains is one of the seismically active regions in the northeastern United States, so it is not surprising that modern seismographic stations were established in the Adirondacks starting in the early 1970s. The central Adirondacks around the AEC are widely known in the geophysical community for earthquake prediction research in the early 1970s. The work began as two earthquakes with magnitudes of 3.6 and 3.4 occurred less than four hours apart on May 23, 1971, at Blue Mountain Lake. These shocks were followed by thousands of small earthquakes until the summer of 1972. During the earthquake swarm, scientists from the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (LDEO) deployed six portable seismographs in the area, which was one of the first seismic field experiments in the northeastern United States. The analysis of data from the field campaign yielded very important findings. In 1973, LDEO scientists reported evidence for premonitory changes in the travel time ratio of seismic P and S waves. The travel time ratio value dropped prior to a magnitude 3.3 earthquake in Blue Mountain Lake. This must be caused by changes in the material properties of the earthquake source region. It was an important finding providing a possible method to predict the occurrence of main earthquakes.
After a relatively quiet period of almost two years, two magnitude 3.6 and four smaller earthquakes occurred at Blue Mountain Lake on July 14 and 15, 1973. An anomalous low travel time ratio was observed for a few days starting on July 30. So, on the night of Aug. 1, scientists at LDEO made a prediction that an earthquake of magnitude 2.5–3.0 would occur within a few days. Indeed, at 11:10 p.m. Aug. 3, an earthquake of magnitude 2.6 occurred. These are some of the finest studies of earthquakes in the United States. After a long pause in seismic activity in the Adirondacks, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake occurred on Oct. 7, 1983, at Goodnow, about 5 km southwest of the AEC. This was the largest earthquake in New York state since the magnitude 5.5 Massena earthquake of Sept. 1944. The shock occurred about 8 km below the surface, and it ruptured a 2 km–long fault plane striking north-south. In October 1992, a digital seismograph with a 3–component, broadband seismometer was installed at the AEC campus at the northern edge of the Atmospheric Monitoring Site to record signals from local earthquakes and large distant earthquakes. In October 1999, the seismographic station at AEC was upgraded to satellite telemetry by the U.S. Geological Survey and LDEO, and the station was named NCB (Newcomb, New York). Since 1999, seismic data have been transmitted to the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) in Golden, Colo., in real time and continue to monitor earthquakes in the Adirondacks as well as large earthquakes worldwide. Seismic records from around the world can be viewed in near real time at http://www.iris.edu/seismon/.
A Summer Full of Adventure Every year two student interns from SUNY-ESF spend the summer living and working in the heart of the Adirondacks. We were this year’s lucky interns. We had the best of both worlds – living and eating at Huntington Forest, and working as interns at the Adirondack Park Agency Audrey Saper works at the VIC. Visitor Interpretive Center at Newcomb (VIC). The best way to describe our summer experience was that “it was always an adventure!” Five days a week for 12 weeks, we spent our day working at the VIC. Every day brought new experiences and stories to tell. We arrived in late May and began adjusting to our new environment and learning the ins and outs of working at a nature center in the Adirondacks. Answering phone calls and questions at the front desk filled the majority of our day. We quickly learned how to find brochures, answer questions, and identify various specimens people brought to us. We got our feet wet and experienced what we had gotten ourselves into for the remainder of summer. There was no backing out now. As summer arrived, visitation dramatically increased and so did our workload.
Steve Fox talks to visitors.
Every day was a new adventure. The VIC staff was great to work for, and the folks at the AEC are some of the most accommodating and helpful people we know. Our boss’s goal for the summer was to provide a positive internship experience. She met this goal as we would come back and do it all over again.
The Huntington Forest family tree has a new leaf! Stacy McNulty and Paul Hai proudly announce the arrival of Lauren Elizabeth Hai. Birth date: Saturday June 4, 2005 Weight: 8 lbs., 3 oz. • Length: 22 inches Number of dimples: 3 (yes, 3!)
Lauren was born four days overdue, despite her parents' attempts to speed the process with spicy food, long walks and a hike up to the Goodnow Mountain fire tower. By that Friday, feeling forlorn at missing out on the summer field season, Stacy decided to sample for salamanders all day. She had just gone to bed when the baby announced her impending arrival. This necessitated a bumpy midnight ride to Glens Falls Hospital, followed by 12 hours of labor and a safe delivery. Lauren is a healthy, happy baby and a good sleeper – highly appreciated traits in the Hai household. She looks forward to seeing many of you at the next meeting or Alumni Reunion!
Huntington Forest Guide Boat Provides Link to the Past By Paul Hai
Over the past year we have continued to explore the history, tangible and otherwise, of this unique property. In particular, we met Dr. Stephan Sulavik of Connecticut, an Adirondack historian and guide boat aficionado who we invited to examine the “derelict” Huntington guide boat.
Our Huntington guide boat has an interesting history.
He and his wife have now visited Huntington twice and saying Dr. Sulavik was excited about our boat is an understatement. The doctor has been working on writing the definitive book about Adirondack guide boats and their builders for many years, and despite having access to the considerable boat collection at the Adirondack Museum, he considers our guide boat quite the find. Like builders of any product, guide boat builders employed techniques and flourishes that distinguished their boats from their competitors. Using these details, Dr. Sulavik identified our guide boat as having been built by Caleb Chase sometime in the 1870’s. This revelation is significant for several reasons. Caleb Chase lived and worked along Route 28N in a homestead later purchased by Archer and incorporated in his holdings, meaning this boat literally was built here. Furthermore, the age of the boat predates the tourism boom in the 1880s and 90s, and means it was constructed as a work boat – the origins of guide boats – and is therefore of greater historical significance. Dr. Sulavik thinks our boat is extremely important for illustrating both the origins and workmanship of guide boats. In light of our intention to restore the boat and use it as the foundation of a natural historybased Adirondack curriculum, he suggested rather than obscuring the work of Caleb’s hand, we should display the boat as is and commission a duplicate. We are currently exploring this option and welcome support of our efforts. For more information please contact me at pbhai@esf.edu or the development office at 315.470.6591
Huntington Reunion set for August All HWF alumni are invited to gather for the weekend of August 25 to 27, 2006, to reminisce, recreate, and reconnect with old friends and have a lot of fun! There will be the traditional wine and cheese party, Rich Lake beach cookout, and various tours and research updates. Check in begins Friday, Aug. 25, and you may linger until Sunday afternoon. If you are interested in attending, please send a request for an application with all the details to: Reunion at Huntington Forest 6312 State Route 28N • Newcomb, N.Y. 12852
RECOLLECTIONS
&REMEMBRANCES
A Visit with
William C. Tierson Forester, Forest General Foreman Forest Property Manager and Director of Wildlife Research 1951 – 1983
It was on a troop train somewhere in northern Georgia when I made the decision to attend ESF, then known as the College of Forestry at Syracuse. I was en route to receive my separation papers from the Army Air Corps. It was early NovOscar Oja, was the first employee to live ember 1945. There were literally at Huntington. millions of GI’s like myself lea ing military service, all entitled to education under the new G.I. Bill of Rights. The college had made arrangements with Syracuse University to teach the freshman year of forestry so we could start in January 1946, continue through the summer and enter ESF in the fall of 1946 as sophomores. After graduating in 1949, I worked at the experiment station on Lafayette Road, primarily in forest nursery production, and in the fall at what was then called Tully Forest, which had recently been acquired by the college. At Tully we worked on a property survey, forest maps, management subdivisions and Christmas tree production and sales. We did some thinning of young hardwood stands and produced firewood for sale in Syracuse. I did most of the skidding with a team of horses that we rented from an adjacent farm, much like the days when I worked on a farm before military service.
THE 1950s In March 1951, I was asked by Dean Joseph Illick if I would be interested in taking employment at the Huntington Forest, with housing provided. My wife, Evangeline, and I were living in a small trailer with three chilPart of the vehicle fleet. dren and no indoor bathroom. I would have taken a job in Siberia if housing were supplied. I accepted the position and we moved to the Huntington in mid-April 1951. We were closer to Siberia than we had expected! We arrived at the Huntington in time to witness “ice-out” on Rich Lake. We were soon to understand that this was an often-celebrated occasion in the Adirondacks and as years passed we looked forward to this event more and more. The ice–water front would move steadily from the western inlets, accelerated by brisk winds and often would proceed the length of the lake, at least to the Rich Lake boathouse in one day. Other years the procedure was slow although never reversing itself. Evangeline (Vange) was fascinated by this event and discovered it was an excellent time to do some birding. I can remember her excitement to see several old squaw ducks following the ice edge. They would soon be on their way farther north.
As forest foreman, I worked directly under Ralph Hutchinson, the forest property manager, who had been transferred to the Huntington from the Syracuse campus in the late 1940s. Oscar Oja, the first college employee to live at HuntBill Tierson, left, and Del Boyer. ington beginning in 1932, departed for Pack Forest before I arrived. William Webb was the forest biologist assisted by Earl Patric, a graduate student working on his master’s degree. There was a distinct separation between the forest management and forest wildlife responsibilities. Earl Patric and I managed to walk the narrow line and we cooperated well. I am sure that Pat can remember the tools painted red (research color) and those painted orange (management color). It was best to not get them mixed up! It reminded me in later life of the Dr. Seuss story about the Star-Belly Sneetches, who did not associate with their Plain-Belly counterparts. About the same time I arrived at Huntington two new pieces of equipment also arrived. One was a nine-ton bulldozer and the other, a motor grader. No one, including myself, had any experience operating them. Several weeks Marking timber. passed while I and another maintenance employee practiced using them and became somewhat proficient, at least to the point where we did not have to be rescued often from some mudhole or rock pile. I was gradually finding out that my college degree had not prepared me for many of the things I would need to do. Ralph Hutchinson (Hutch) was a knowledgeable forester and I learned much from him. The first summer we spent many hours together looking at the forest road system, visiting the active timber sale, checking all the buildings on the property and identifying maintenance and improvement needs. We made plans to replace most of the bridges, re-roof several buildings, and upgrade the entire road system with special considerations to the Adjidaumo Flow - Wolf Lake section of the Truck Trail as it was called in those times. This particular section of road was not much more than an improved trail winding around many large stumps and boulders, with few culverts and overall poor drainage. The road was built to facilitate logging of the Adjidaumo area, one of the first of several timber sales that the Wildlife Department had Earl Patric checks a beaver trap.
requested to be established to study how different intensities of timber removal affected wildlife. As our road improvement work began in earnest, we were quick to realize that our equipment was outclassed by the Vange and Bill Tierson relax in huge stumps and boulders that the late 1960’s. needed removal. Joseph Tefoe, one of our maintenance folks, said, “We need to use a little powder.” This of course meant dynamite explosives. Joe had been the powder man for Finch Pruyn Company’s road construction crew. He was skilled in the use of explosives and he taught me, carefully, the fine art of how to use powder fuses and electric detonators. I must confess that the first time I used an aluminum punch to make a hole in a stick of dynamite and then insert the blasting cap, there was a creepy feeling on the back of my neck. Back in those times one could get a permit from the town clerk to purchase and use explosives for 25 cents. A separate permit was required to store explosives. It would surely take an act of Congress to do the same today. During the early 1950s Earl Patric (Pat) also moved to the Huntington with his recent bride, Jeanne. Living at Huntington with young children was difficult for both Vange and Jeanne. There was a certain isolation imposed by the environment and the responsibility of a family. Later, as the children started school, these mothers were drawn into the community and their social life expanded. Other problems presented themselves at this time, such as negotiating Arbutus hill in the winter to bring children to meet the school bus and leaving the children to wait for the bus when it was -20 degrees!
Office work.
Hutch, Pat, and I belonged to the Newcomb Fire Depart-ment and attended regular meetings. I can remember traveling to Minerva with Pat to attend Fire
and Red Cross First Aid training classes. In an earlier article, Earl Patric mentioned the activities in the Cold River area and the timber salvage that took place. All the logs, pulpwood, and lumber from this endeavor had to be transported over Huntington roads and bridges. In addition, the construction of the road to Cold River required many loads of crushed stone to be trucked over forest roads. This heavy use took its toll on the road system and we were constantly involved in maintenance and repairs. In addition, the logging operations on Huntington had been accelerated to include two more areas of different harvesting intensities and also a study of cutting intensities started by the college silviculture department. This was called the cutting methods study. All but one of the wooden bridges from the early days was replaced during the 50’s with larger structural members. It was evident, however, that a different approach was needed to lengthen the replacement period and provide for increasingly heavier loads. This was to be addressed in the 60s.
THE 1960s In about 1958, Ralph Hutchinson retired as forest manager and Earl Patric was appointed assistant professor in charge. This was a significant change in administrative policy as it made most decisions on the
Huntington the responsibility of one person who reported to the dean of the College. The change was significant. It was now possible to replace a culvert using a red shovel or plant a crab apple tree with an orange shovel. One almost felt a bit guilty! I jest a little here only to point out that the former approach was quite often counter-productive. During the next few years the program at Huntington began to ramp up and more personnel were hired, some in maintenance, others in wildlife research areas. Of course there was no state funding available for these positions, so they were supported by Huntington funds which were largely from timber sales. While this was a flexible system, it presented other difficulties in employee benefits such as insurance, retirement, vacation etc. We made it work but, in retrospect, it was not the best system we could have used. I often had the feeling that the Huntington Forest was a mysterious place to those at the Syracuse campus and the less they heard from us, the better. As long as we followed the state’s rules, we had a free rein within broad guidelines. That was a good environment to work in but had the problems Clearing a right-of-way. previously mentioned. Pat was a thrifty administrator and we tried our best to conserve the Huntington funds and still move forward in our program. As a result we began to aggressively accumulate motor equipment, research supplies and equipment, and other “stuff ” using the federal government surplus property program. These included pickup trucks, truck crane, cargo carrier “weasel,” five-ton 6x6 truck and radar van used to control aircraft landings, two-way radio units, miles of copper wire, etc. Pat was interested in radio communication and worked for some years on developing a radio tracking system to monitor white-tailed deer movements. He also gave us our first radio units for voice communication. The truck crane was a 20-ton unit mounted on rubber and located at West Point Military Academy. We had investigated shipping this machine by rail but the logistics were unfavorable and we decided to tune it up and drive it to Newcomb. About five days after leaving for West Point with most of the tools we thought necessary we made it home, very tired after 12-hour days, and many stops for repairs, both minor and major. It was a worthwhile endeavor as we used this crane for loading hundreds of loads of road surfacing soil, and cleaning stream channels when we replaced our wooden bridges with steel pipe. Pat had purchased the pipe from a salvage yard in Plattsburgh. It was used stock from a hydroelectric plant in northern New York. The pipe was six feet in diameter and delivered to Newcomb in 22-foot lengths. These three-ton sections were placed in the streambed, easy work for our crane with a 10-ton lifting capacity! There are other, similar remembrances of trips to secure various items but they will have to wait. Decking logs at the sawmill. To be continued…
Dick Sage Honored Deceased AEC Researcher Wins 2005 Wildlife Stewardship Award From American Forest and Paper Association The American Forest & Paper Association awarded its 2005 Wildlife Stewardship Industry Cooperator Award to the late Richard W. Sage for his contribution to wild-life and land stewardship in the AdironAF & PA’s W. Henson Moore presents the award dack region of New York. to Dr. William Porter The award recognizes an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution to wildlife stewardship in managed private forests or a Sustainable Forestry Initiative program participant’s forest and has advanced the practice of sustainable forestry. The award was presented at the SFI Annual Conference in Portland, Maine, Sept.21, and accepted by Dr. William Porter, director of the Adirondack Ecological Center.
and unprecedented,”said AF&PA President and CEO W. Henson Moore. “His leadership skills, strong commitment to sound science, and uncompromising initiative deserve special recognition, especially in his work to educate others to the benefits of managed forests, wildlife diversity and prosperous forests.”
“Mr. Sage’s myriad contributions at SUNY and on behalf of the forest products industry at the regional and national levels are impressive
Mr. Sage was associate director of the AEC. He died in 2002.
Finch-Pruyn & Co., and International Paper, both SFI program participants, were among the first to receive Mr. Sage’s new forest management plan that proved that healthy, diverse wildlife habitat and economically productive forests are compatible. His holistic approach involves wildlife population management, reducing fast-growing beech trees, and optimizing the amount of light allowed through the forest canopy. Joseph Hanley, forest operations manager at International Paper, said, “Dick had a wonderful way of sharing his knowledge and translating sometimes esoteric science into useful information that had an impact on the day-to-day level.”
Faculty Put New Technology in Focus On a clear, cool weekend in October, 12 members of the SUNYESF faculty came together at the Adirondack Ecological Center (AEC) and made decisions that will pull ESF into a new era. For many, it was their first visit to ESF’s Newcomb campus. These leaders were part of a conference for the Council for Geospatial Modeling and Analysis (CGMA). They met to discuss new ways to apply and teach technologies such as ArcGIS, ArcView, SAS, GPS, and remote sensing. They spent hours poring over ways to synthesize these new technology tools with uses that have developed recently. Throughout the weekend, some innovative ideas were inspired by the fresh mountain air and spectacular lakeside setting of Huntington Lodge. CGMA realized its role in coordinating and enabling better use of spatial technologies by identifying key gaps in the availability of data to ESF students and faculty. Furthermore, the group envisioned ways in which ESF’s Syracuse campus could work with the Adirondack Ecological Center to bring the latest level of geographic information technologies (GIT) education to ESF students. The CGMA group decided to explore ways to improve the AEC’s spatial data-holding capacity by acquiring a new set of computer servers. These servers would hold data on a huge variety of subjects researched by students and faculty over the years. This information could be invaluable to future projects and could prompt novel insights for new directions in scientific study. Additionally, a similar, complementary database at Moon Library on the Syracuse campus was discussed as a prospective development.
The second mission undertaken at the CGMA retreat was the curriculum at ESF. The participants agreed that with a new demand for graduates who have outstanding GIT knowledge, there is a need to expand the curriculum by offering more courses related to a wider array of major programs of study. Everyone also wanted to look into ways to better unite the AEC with the main Syracuse campus. As a result, the AEC will now be intricately involved with the Syracuse campus through distance learning options in GIT, as well as providing a locale for a new GPS workshop taught by Paul Szemkow. Stacy McNulty at the AEC will work with Dr. Lee Herrington at the Syracuse campus on a distance learning component to Raster GIS Analysis this spring. This could develop into a distance education program between the AEC and the main campus, helping to connect Huntington Forest with the rest of the college. Finally, there was much discussion about how to offer more assistance to students who are using spatial technologies for their coursework and research. One solution was offering a GPS workshop. Another idea was offering a regularly scheduled help session in a computer lab, such as Baker Lab. Many innovative ideas came out of the meeting, such as offering a full GIS lab with a staff member who could offer assistance to students on projects and assignments. Some people suggested offering a college-wide GIS introductory course. These discussions were a sign of more things yet to come to ESF and the AEC from the world of spatial technologies.